Daily Archives: November 30, 2017

To the extent that Boylan engages with Phillips’s actual argument, she waves it away with a paragraph so specious that one has to read it to believe it:

Mr. Phillips certainly makes nice-looking cakes. But I’m not sure I’d call them artistic expressions, at least not in the same sense as, say, Joyce’s “Ulysses.” That argument demands that the court get into the business of defining art itself, a door the justices open at their peril. Is a well-manicured lawn a form of art by this definition? How about a lean corned beef sandwich? What would not be art if the court rules to protect icing and buttercream?

In this case, the complaining gay couple ultimately decided on a rainbow cake. Can Boylan not see that the cake clearly and unmistakably sent a specific message? There is a substantial difference between a rainbow symbol at an event celebrating a same-sex wedding and a corned-beef sandwich. Phillips isn’t comparing himself to Joyce, he’s making the painfully obvious point that there’s a viewpoint inherent in the expression his customers asked him to create — a viewpoint that a well-manicured lawn lacks.

Here’s the problem. If a writer squarely addresses the argument that Phillips actually makes, then she will soon run head-on to a sobering constitutional reality. Sexual revolutionaries are asking the Court to overturn generations of constitutional precedent to allow the state to compel American citizens to advance ideas they find reprehensible.

Boylan claims that Phillips is seeking special religious exemptions. To the contrary, sexual revolutionaries are seeking exemptions from the Constitution. They believe that same-sex marriage is so precious that even artists can be conscripted into the ceremony — despite their deeply held beliefs. They believe that the cost of entering the marketplace is not just the loss of your distinct artistic voice but the commandeering of that voice by your ideological foes to advance their ideological interests.

In a rare political intervention, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has explicitly criticised the US President Donald Trump for retweeting anti-Muslim videos posted by a British far-right extremist group. Archbishop Justin said “it is deeply disturbing that the President of the United States has chosen to amplify the voice of far-right extremists.” The UK Prime Minister Theresa May also criticised the US President, but was slapped down by Mr Trump, who told her to “focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism.”

The original tweets were posted by Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First, a minority political party with virtually no support in Britain outside its estimated 1,000 followers. In a 2014 parliamentary by-election in the Rochester and Strood constituency, Fransen received just 56 of the 40,065 votes cast. She is currently awaiting trial in Belfast on charges of using “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour” and in Kent for inciting racial hatred.

She and her followers have stormed mosques and carried out what they call “Christian Patrols” – marching in paramilitary-stule uniforms carrying a large cross in areas of the UK populated by people who – either themselves or through their ancestors – have roots in south-Asian countries. She claims to be Christian but it is not known if she attends any church. Her actions and those of Britain First have been condemned by Christian leaders from across the denominational spread.

The faith angle of the Markle story is certainly an interesting subject. What does the word “Protestant” mean in this context, as opposed to the word “Anglican”?

That’s a question worthy of discussion, but there are other layers to the puzzle. Some might hint at royal opinions about the match?

For example: If Markle is already a Protestant Christian, why is she being baptized? I have never heard of anyone being re-baptized in order to be confirmed as an Anglican. Protestant converts to Anglicanism, under ordinary circumstances, are simply confirmed. Catholics are “received” into the church, since they were already part of an ancient Communion (there’s that via media, part Catholic-part Protestant factor, again).

But, for now, it is clear that the Uniting Methodists document requires that we consider all of the language around sexual immorality in the New Testament as either generic, non-specific or only referring to a very tiny slice of sexual immorality; namely, pederasty. Yet, as we have seen, the exegetical case for this is not defensible. If we are being asked to sign off on this option and “agree to disagree” on this issue, then we will need to have a much better conversation about the biblical data which pertains to this question.

I, for one, remain completely unconvinced by the progressive argument and am actually disappointed that they would argue so strongly about their commitment to biblical authority and yet provide no serious exegetical argument for the dramatic changes they wish to usher into the life and faith of the church. To move a named sin from a New Testament “sin list” and declare that we are now to regard it as a sacrament is unprecedented. Christians have every right to resist this doctrinal innovation which is being embraced by a few declining mainline denominations in the western world.

“When I look at the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast established; what is man that thou are mindful of him” (Psalm 8:3)? It’s a haunting and powerful question. A man stands alone beneath a starry firmament in an open field, a mother gathers her newborn child into her arms for the first time, or a woman stands in a hospital room with family members to commend a just-deceased father to God’s care. First, a stillness. Then out of the depths the questions surge forth. Who, exactly, are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going?

Who we are is THE question of the twenty-first century. Partly this has theological roots. The church has lost touch with CREATION as a key part of her teaching since the nineteenth century, and then in the twentieth century, ESCHATOLOGY, the church’s sense of how history will finally come out, has been sadly neglected. So many Christians float out in philosophical space like Sputnik, without a clear sense of their beginning or their end. This makes the human identity question all the more poignant.

Another important reason is cultural. We have developed in the last fifty years hitherto unimaginable technology, thereby moving farther back the time in which we can sustain a preborn infant outside her mother’s womb, and we are moving farther out the time in which a person’s life can be continued. If a premature infant can be maintained, but without normal functioning, should they be? If an older person is in a hospital room and only kept alive with machines, and they seem to us to be nothing more than a ghost of their former selves, what are we to do? Is that life? Is that humanness?

These questions were movingly brought to the fore for me at a recent meeting of the Episcopal Church’s Working Group on Science, Technology and Faith. We heard a brilliant presentation by Dr. Stephen Post, a professor at Case Western Reserve University, on the moral theology of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Dr. Post made two points clear. The first is that the issue of sustaining life for a longer and longer period is very much more pressing than many of us realize. Yes, there is an aging population in the West, but there is more. Researchers are working very hard to press out the envelope of the supposed “life expectancy” of people. I heard Gail Sheehy say in an interview that one third of girls born today will reach ninety. Dr. Post went further. He had just recently returned from a major conference in Germany in which NONE of those present assumed people would not soon be living from 120-140 years and beyond, it was only a question of when. The desire to be the first to achieve this feat among scientists is like the quest for the Holy Grail. One recent study extended the normal life span of a species of worm by three and one half times its normal range through use of external modifiers of one sort, another used different modifiers to double the expected life span of a fruit fly. If we think this is not coming for men and women, we are in for quite a shock.

This immediately raises troubling questions: if we know our days are numbered will we value them more?
Should we simply extend people’s possible life span if we have the capability of doing so?

The second problem posed by Dr. Post had to do with the way in which we value and appreciate who a person really is. He maintained we live in a “hypercognitive” society. Coming from a man who has worked with Alzheimer’s patients and their families since 1988 it had a special sting. Thinking and doing are what we in this country appear to be “about”, and if you cannot do those things, you are less valued. In some cases you become a sort of non-person, or worse.

But is this all there is to humanness? When God created men and women in his image, was it only to think and to do? What about being, feeling? What about loving and being loved? What about praying and being known and loved by God?

How interesting to see Alzheimer’s on the cover of Time magazine in 2001, for those who have this disease and those who care for them have much to teach us. When are you most alive? We do well to ponder that question, and as we do let us think foremost of him who loved his disciples in the world “until the end,” and who shows us that a person is never more alive than when he or she is on their knees praying to their heavenly Father.

Almighty God, who didst give such grace to thine apostle Andrew that he readily obeyed the call of thy Son Jesus Christ, and brought his brother with him: Give unto us, who are called by thy Word, grace to follow him without delay, and to bring those near to us into his gracious presence; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

O Lord God of time and eternity, who makest us creatures of time that, when time is over, we may attain thy blessed eternity: With time, thy gift, give us also wisdom to redeem the time, lest our day of grace be lost; for our Lord Jesus’ sake.

A Song of Ascents. Of David. O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.